Few products in the sky are better than Singapore Airlines Suites Class. If you haven’t checked out the Singapore Airlines Suites Class, stop what you’re doing right now and check out this video.

For Singapore Airlines, there is:

Economy

Premium Economy

Business Class

First Class

SUITES CLASS

As you can see in the video above, the Suites class is just insane. Private checkin, in-flight wine tastings, gourmet food, etc. But this post isn’t about how awesome the Singapore Air Suites are. This post is about how I was able to book the Singapore Airlines Suites Class for a VERY REASONABLE amount of miles and a total of $285 USD.

Normal one-way flights are $8,330.24

HOW I BOOKED

Izumi & I wanted to go back to SE Asia, and knew that if we could fly in the Suites, it was a no brainer. Having over half a million Delta miles, I did a quick check to see how many miles it would cost me to go from JFK to Singapore.

Flying from JFK, there are a handful of options to get to Singapore in Delta’s Delta One Business Class. The problem is that they are all on partner airlines.

For 80k Delta miles, I would be able to get 1, one-way ticket from JFK to SIN on China Eastern’s business class. Here is a review from OneMileAtATime of their business class product. Overall, Lucky notes it has a lot of potential, but falls short in many areas.

There is also a partner flight on China Southern, but I wasn’t interested in taking that airline. This, right here, is one of the biggest issues with Delta. Because Delta One is considered business class, when you fly with partner airlines, the highest category you will ever receive is a business class seat (as opposed to United or American offering first class seats on partner airlines).

In addition to only being able to fly business class, most partner airlines (Korean Air specifically) limits Delta to one business class fare per flight. Meaning, if Izumi and I wanted to fly business class, we couldn’t because Delta limits it to one passenger per flight.

SINGAPORE AIRLINES

Rather than spending 80k Delta miles on a “decent at best” China Eastern flight, I wanted to fly in the Singapore Air Suites. Long story short, you can fly to Singapore/SE Asia on Delta for 80k on a decent at best business class flight OR you can fly to Singapore (from JFK) for 93,500 miles in the SINGAPORE SUITES!!!!!

The hardest part of booking the Singapore Suites is finding a ticket that is available at the “saver level.” For the example below, I looked at dates as far out as I possibly could, and it is still showing as waitlisted for the suites.

Just by booking online, you receive a 15% discount off award travel

From what I’ve read online, Singapore Airlines is random at letting passengers know if they are confirmed on a flight (some report a confirmed flight 2 months out, others, 2 weeks out).

Personally, I can’t plan any travel unless I know when my flights are. Therefore, I need a confirmed ticket before doing anything. I knew I wanted to travel sometime in September. So starting a full year out, I checked every day to see when the Suites Class was confirmed available at the saver level. Lucky for Izumi & I, I was able to book a confirmed seat for September. Once I found the ticket, I immediately transferred my points over from AMEx and Chase to Singapore Airlines (and prayed that the flight was still there). The transfer took one day for Chase and 2 days for AMEx.

HOW TO GET POINTS

The easiest way to get Singapore Airline points is with either the Chase Ultimate Rewards points or AMEx Membership Rewards. Both offer 1:1 match between points and miles to Singapore Airlines.

Singapore Airlines is also part of Star Alliance (United) but will often require way more miles to fly the same flight. The biggest benefit to booking direct through Singapore Airlines (as opposed to using United Miles) is that Singapore Airlines is MUCH more willing to open up award “saver” tickets to those booking directly through Singapore Airlines.

Don’t want to go into too many details, but right now, the Chase Reserve card is giving away 100k points as a signup bonus, which you can transfer 1:1 over to Singapore Airlines. That means, you would be able to fly in the Suites class one way from JFK to SIN just for signing up and using the card.

Conclusion

If you can book the Suites at the saver level for 93k miles, it’s an absolute no brainer. From Singapore, it’s super easy to get to other parts of Asia (you can also book the Suites class from SIN to Hong Kong for 30k miles on way).